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Praying mantises are specialized predators with several visual adaptations to detect and capture prey. In this talk, I will talk about three adaptations: stereo vision, second-order motion detection and sustained attention. We tested mantises with virtual 3D targets and showed that mantis stereopsis enables prey capture in complex scenes but relies on a different mechanism to that seen in primates. We next tested their responses to different forms of motion and demonstrated the important of second-order motion for prey detection by not prey capture. Finally, we tested the ability of mantises to attend to prey once they become stationary and found that mantises are capable of long-term sustained attention that depends on stereoscopic disparity. I will discuss the implications for real world behaviour and the benefits of a comparative approach towards understanding visual cognition.
